There were several bridge players among my peers at work. Some played during lunch hour and others, with their wives together with other couples played the game. But that wasn’t enough bridge for some and it came to pass that some of the guys got their heads together and formed a group to play duplicate bridge on a regular basis. Thus a duplicate bridge club came into existence. The club had sixteen regular players to form four tables of play.

As you likely know bridge is a partnership game of two versus two. In duplicate bridge, the hands are played the same as in regular bridge. The difference is that in duplicate bridge all players play the same hands.

In preparation for the session, a separate deck of cards for each game to be played is dealt into four hands and stored in a special rack having a space for each hand. Ordinarily four racks of cards are stacked and placed on each table.

In our club, partnerships were predetermined at the beginning of the season. Each member had a different partner for each session, so that by the season’s end each member had been a partner of every other member. Each game was scored according to regular bridge rules. Individual scores were determined by comparison of points scored by each player playing the same hand. After each game the hands were put back in the rack for the next four players. The game scores were tallied for each table after four games were played. Then the players moved to the next table to continue the session and repeated the process until all players had played all the cards.

At the end of the session the scores of the players playing the north-south hands were compared and given a ranking. The best score received top mark and the other three north-south players received lower marks depending on ranking of their scores. The east-west scores were likewise compared and given marks in the same way. Each player’s rank was tallied and added each session until the end of the season when the season’s winner was determined.

All the players seemed to like to play with Hayes Crapo as a partner because they had a good chance of making a good score. But this didn’t necessarily give them an advantage. They only got Crapo as a partner once a season. As it turned out the end of the first season found Crapo the winner. There wasn’t a big prize, if any.

Most of the sixteen players returned for the second season hoping to do better the second time around. After all they’d had a few months to practice. But guess what. Crapo finished again at the top of the class with room to spare. This caused dissatisfaction among some of the players and they sought a change that would level the playing field.

It was decided to assign each player a partner for the whole season, rather than for only a single session. Following much discussion on the subject they decided to pair the players according to the order of final standing at the end of the last season. The one with the highest score would be the partner of the one with the lowest score, and so on, so that the two guys with the middle scores became partners. Not all the players were happy with the arrangement but they went along with it.

The third season for the Duplicate Bridge Club met and played as before and most seemed content with things as they were. As the season progressed, a glance at the cumulative scores showed Yohe and Jessee, just a couple of average players who were ranked in the middle, in or near the lead, and Crapo and his partner down the line a piece.

At the end of the season Yohe and Jessee were declared winners. They took credit for breaking up the club. It was the club’s last season. The players, especially Crapo, seemed to lose interest. Perhaps this goes to show that the game depends on how you stack the deck.